


where the shore ends

by hellbeast



Series: this is where we hope it gets better [2]
Category: The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Barely Canon Compliant, Found Family, Gen, Magical Realism, Other, Post-Canon, Team as Family, realismo mágico
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2017-12-23 18:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/929506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellbeast/pseuds/hellbeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Miami, they move on.</p><p>(direct sequel to <em>the tide drags</em>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. si volviera a comenzar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cougar is expecting it when Roque slams him into the side of the building, eyes narrowed and scowl firmly in place.
> 
> “I told you,” Cougar mumbles, before Roque can even open his mouth, “I keep my promises.”
> 
> Roque laughs and then slams his fist into Cougar’s jaw – one, two, three times; three has always been their number, a good number – and laughs again. The movement of his mouth pulls the burn scars taut.
> 
> “Okay,” Roque chuckles, white teeth a quick gleam in the dim lighting, “Okay, okay. Let's hear it.”

*

After Miami, they move on.

*

“I’m staying with Jolene and the baby,” Pooch tells Clay, his jaw set stubbornly, “I’ll come if you guys need me, but I got a _lot_ to make up for.”

Clay frowns and opens his mouth to protest. Aisha shoves her elbow into Clay’s ribs. Jensen shoves his elbow into Clay’s ribs. Cougar shoots Clay a dirty look. Pooch politely does not acknowledge any of it.

“Yeah, okay,” Clay manages between short breaths, “Alright.”

*

They go to one of Beth’s games, and despite Beth being fouled and Jensen nearly fighting the referee, the Petunias emerge victorious – although the greater victory is clearly that Jensen somehow talked Cougar into wearing a Petunias shirt underneath his jacket.

“This is good,” Jensen declares soundly, holding Beth up on his shoulders. Jennifer - with her arms looped through Cougar’s and the strap of the bag she’s making Jensen carry - smiles. It’s not a nice smile.

“I’m glad you think so. And since we haven’t really talked about it, if you _ever_ get falsely labeled KIA and you don’t tell me, we will be having _words_.”

“Yeah Uncle Jake,” Beth adds, “Or else momma might blow up all your computers again.”

“ _Blow up_ -? Wait, what do you mean _again_?” Jensen squawks, making Beth shriek in delight and firmly grip Jensen’s facial hair, “You told me the basement flooded!”

Jennifer smiles that not-nice smile a little wider and serenely repeats, “All of them. Again.”

Cougar pulls the brim of his hat down to hide the upward curl of his lips.

*

Clay and Aisha get a loft. Cougar attends the ‘housewarming’ and is there when the team helps them move everything in.

He is also there when the fire department arrives three and a half hours later to put out the inferno, courtesy of what Jensen is calling Clay and Aisha’s “sadomasochistic foreplay”. Clay doesn’t meet any of their eyes for the rest of the day, but Aisha smirks like the cat that got the cream, the canary and the mouse.

(It's all very quaint in a way that makes Cougar rub his chest absently, frowning at something not quite there.)

*

Cougar takes stock: Pooch is with Jolene in the boonies of Rhode Island (“That is such an oxymoron,” Jensen keeps saying, “There’s hardly enough Rhode Island to _be_ Rhode Island.”), cooing over their baby. Jensen is with Jennifer and Beth somewhere near Maryland. Clay and Aisha are around Boston. Everyone’s settled. Or, mostly everyone.

Cougar goes south.

*

After weeks of recon and skulking, calling in favors from all his local contacts, Cougar finds a bar in San Juan named _Cinco Perdedores Muertos_. It’s pretty non-descript looking, and the inside is clean. There’s never a full house, but there are always enough people to suggest a steady and loyal clientele. After three more weeks of casual recon, Cougar finally goes in.

“What are you doing here?” The bartender asks in Hindi, garnering a few odd looks from the closest customers.

“I told you that I would bring you back,” Cougar replies in Farsi.

“And I told you that I might not come back,” the bartender drawls in Portuguese.

“I promised,” Cougar says in English, and then, “Roque, lo prometí.”

Roque sighs explosively and tugs off the dirty white apron he’d been wearing. As he stalks towards Cougar, he points at a man leaning against an old jukebox and snaps, “Michel, you’re on deck.”

Michel – a young Taíno man with long hair and some sort of blade strapped to his inner thigh, nearly hidden by the thick denim of his jeans – nods seriously, and a smattering of whispers breaks out amongst the lingering customers. Roque shuts them up with a glare and a grudging round on the house.

Cougar is expecting it when Roque slams him into the side of the building, eyes narrowed and scowl firmly in place.

“I told you,” Cougar mumbles, before Roque can even open his mouth, “I keep my promises.”

Roque laughs and then slams his fist into Cougar’s jaw – one, two, three times; three has always been a good number, _their_ number – and laughs again. The movement of his mouth pulls the burn scars taut.

“Okay,” Roque chuckles, white teeth a quick gleam in the dim lighting, “Okay, okay. Let's hear it.”

**

Roque’s mother was from Chapada dos Veadeiros and his father was from Chiapas. Roque was born in São Paolo, and lived there until he didn't. No one knows this. No one truly knows the Who or the Where of him. No one knows the _When_.

The boxed marked ‘nationality’ on his military records says American; his hometown is listed as some small town straddling the imaginary line between West and Midwest; says he was born in the late 70s, some somber morning in the winter.

(When he enlisted, everything was paper and ink, and it was easy to... _embellish_ a few things.)

Roque tells Clay he’s from Chicago; he tells Jensen he was born in the DR, but raised in Brooklyn; tells Pooch he’s from Sierra Leone, adopted by some rich white suburban family and raised in New England; tells Cougar he’s second generation Ghanaian, lived a little bit of everywhere. He has the slightest of accents to back him up on each separate occasion.

And yet, somehow, whenever Cougar says his name, it’s with the slightest trill of the r, the long pull of the o, a sharp ‘kay’ instead of the blunt English ‘kuh’.

Roque never says anything, never corrects him, even though for the first year Pooch and Jensen would always look lost for half a second, before they chalked it up to one of Cougar’s eccentricities (for someone so quiet, he has quite a few of them).

He’s not sure if Clay’s ever noticed.

So Roque never says anything, but his name on Cougar’s tongue sounds a little like his mamãe, a little like papai, and a lot like _home_.

**

Cougar can tell that Roque is terrified. He can’t see it; there’s nothing to see on Roque’s face, nothing hesitant or anxious in his posture, his movements. But Cougar can _tell_.

“Pooch is probably going to break my hand,” Roque murmurs to himself, and Cougar makes a half-silent noise of sympathy.

Roque frowns, “Jensen is going to _cry_ on me and then punch me.”

He’s probably right; Cougar shrugs. Tries to hide a smirk; fails.

“Oye, vete a la mierda, pendejo,” Roque snaps, flicking the brim of Cougar’s hat. It only makes Cougar smirk harder.

From the front porch, they can hear the baby – Linneus, Cougar tells him, but most of the team calls him Lin, after his father – burbling happy half-formed words. Beth is trying to get Lin to say her name from the sound of it, and Jensen, Jolene and Pooch are talking, but not so loud as to make out the actual words.

That’s family, Roque tells himself, that’s who it was all for, this _happiness_.

Cougar rings the doorbell.

“Uncle Cougar’s here!” They can hear Beth’s shriek and the sound of small feet running.

“Shit,” Roque says. It sounds like a plea.

Beth flings the door open, and at the sight of Roque, screams.

“ _Mierda_ ,” Roque says emphatically, as Pooch and Jensen come sprinting from within the house, obviously packing.

When they see Roque, it gets quiet. Beth scrambles back into the house after a quick push from Jensen.

Roque is wrong, at least; Jensen doesn’t cry before he punches him.

*

Jensen gets that one hit off – Roque grabbing his mouth and cursing into his palms – and Pooch has his gun raised and his face is grim and the whole situation is spinning out of control.

“Fucking-” Roque is snarling, “ _Oye_ , pinche pendejo, you just gonna let this fucker beat on me?”

Which means Cougar is on damage control. Easy.

After Cougar shoves a blade – one of Roque’s; nice, clean, smooth edge – to Jensen’s jugular and stops whatever movement Pooch so clearly wants to make with a glance, he takes a step back. Pooch closes the front door behind them.

“Fuck you,” Jensen is shaking, his fists are clenching, but Cougar can see the tears forming in his eyes, “Fuck you both, ohmyfucking _god_ , fuck you.”

“What is this?” Pooch hisses furiously at Cougar, “What are you _doing_?”

“I’m coming back,” Roque’s voice is firm, but he’s hovering more in Cougar’s orbit than standing on his own.

“Are you _shitting_ me - fuck you,” Jensen spits, jabbing a harsh finger at Roque, “You _left_.”

“No,” Roque snaps back, crowding closer to Cougar but not past him, “I _ended_ it.”

And well, Jensen doesn’t have anything to say to that.

“What does that even _mean_ ,” Pooch starts to argue, but Roque cuts him off with a sharp hand gesture.

“Are you two fuckin’ _stupid_? Clay woulda had us runnin’ after Max for the rest of our miserable, short lives, woulda had us workin’ off the word of some mysterious psycho chick who wanted us dead from the _start_ , woulda had us dead ten times over. Woulda had us following Aisha like she wasn’t some back-stabbing-”

“Oh that’s _rich_ , coming from you,” Jensen's voice is rough.

“I _left_ ,” Roque grits out, and suddenly he’s got Jensen by the collar, “To do what we shoulda done from the beginning. Gone the fuck _home_. Not chased after a madman with a Machiavellian complex like we were the _goddamn A-team_!”

And then it’s quiet again and Roque’s words – shouts, really – are hanging there, their anger still in the air.

“I told him that I’d bring him back, if he left,” Cougar speaks up, finally, and Jensen looks at him like he’s the biggest fucking traitor on the face of the planet.

“You were _in_ on this?” Pooch is indignant, angry.

Cougar wants to argue – there’s no _this_ to be in on, just him and Roque making sure that shit got done, the way it _should’ve_ been (and although Roque will never say it and Cougar will only think it, the way Clay was _supposed_ to lead them, instead of letting himself be led) – but Pooch is _pissed_ and Jensen and Roque are spitting curses back and forth and – 

Of course, that’s when Clay and Aisha pull up.

**

Roque only manages not to get shot because Cougar steps in front of him, and raises his revolver, its sights trained easily between Clay and Aisha through the windshield.

From the porch, they can all hear Aisha’s low whistle and the follow-up of, “You Losers don’t do things by halves, huh?”

There’s a look of what might be shock in her eyes, but she’s otherwise composed. Clay, on the other hand, looks like he’s about to combust. They exit the car carefully, Cougar’s gun trained on their every move.

“ _In_ ,” Clay growls, gesturing harshly to the front door, pulling rank with voice alone.

Roque wants to remind Clay that they’re not that anymore, not soldiers, let alone his team, but Cougar is not-so-subtly herding him, so Roque goes.

**

They – Clay and Pooch and Jensen, since Cougar is ‘compromised’ and Roque doesn’t give a single, solitary fuck about Aisha’s opinion – make him sit in the front room with Jolene and the kids while they talk on the back porch.

Jolene is as nice as ever, not even bringing up the whole, “They told me you were a traitor and also dead” thing, and Beth takes Jolene’s lead easily. She even apologizes for screaming at him, and offers to draw him a picture with all the severity of her eight years. Roque graciously accepts.

Linneus, at least, is openly fascinated by Roque. He crawls his way over, and when Roque picks him up, under Jolene’s watchful eye, he grabs at every bit of Roque that he can. He’s especially fascinated by Roque’s burns.

“Ei, Lino,” Roque says at one point, from underneath the boy’s small fingers, the quick slur of his Portuguese garnering a giggle, “Easy with the pulling, filho.”

Jolene is smiling in earnest now, and Roque’s sure he looks stupid as hell 

“Lino?” Cougar questions, and Roque’s not even surprised that the sniper had snuck his way back in.

“Can’t say his name,” Roque grunts as Linneus digs sharp infant nails into Roque’s stubble and _pulls_ , “Gets all stunted.”

Cougar hums, but then Clay and Jensen and Pooch are back, grim-faced and eyes on Roque’s every move.

Roque hands Linneus back over to Jolene before Pooch can even own up to feeling uncomfortable, and immediately wishes he hadn’t, because there’s nothing that would give any of them pause now. 

He thinks that maybe they’ll yell at him, maybe they’ll hit him, but he knows that when all’s said and done, with Cougar thrumming with tension at side ready to fight for him, _die_ for what Roque wants, he can take on the world.

**

The whole thing’s fucked.

It passes in a blur, in a way that makes Roque wonder when he hit his head. Clay is authoritarian and commanding in the way he never was when he _needed_ to be, and it rankles so fucking much Roque can hardly stand it. Pooch is tight-lipped and Jensen is petulant, but Roque knows that some part of them understands why he did it. He doesn't need their approval to know he's right, but knowing that they don't despise him goes a long way.

Aisha is there, giving her opinion – which, granted, isn’t _wrong_ , they _knew_ the whole plan was pretty fucking risky and only a hair's breadth from truly traitorous – but everything about Aisha has Roque permanently half a skip from rage and he can’t even—

Clay wants to watch him, Jensen wants to hit him and Pooch and Aisha decline to involve themselves.

Cougar just looks at Roque, real steady, and quirks his eyebrows in the way that means _up to you_ and _I got your back_ all at the same time.

**

“You shoulda left me in fucking San Juan,” Roque mumbles in the direction of Cougar’s back, petulant, “Shouldn’t be fucking around like I’ve still got a place here.”

The guest bedroom is small, almost stifling in its quaintness. Roque had immediately pulled the mattress from the frame and onto the floor, piled with sheets and pillows. Cougar had watched, amused, as Roque crafted a nest positioned out of sight of the room's window. Jolene had looked a little skeptical when Roque said they would share, but she hadn't argued. Cougar is glad now, that they have the room to themselves. Otherwise, Roque would probably keep his thought to himself until he exploded.

“Te queremos... te quiero aquí,” Cougar mumbles back, shifting until they face each other and placing careful fingers on Roque’s face, trailing them along the mountains and valleys of burn scars, “You got these for our sakes, pa’ familia. Te necesitamos aquí.”

Roque is tense, stiff in that angry way he carries himself, but he doesn’t shrug Cougar off. It’s a start.

“Eu _odeio_ isso ,” Roque whispers furiously, over and over, letting himself be vulnerable because only Cougar can understand him, and Cougar doesn’t say anything, even when he feels the pinprick of tears along his collarbone.

*

Jensen mentions Max in passing, once, and Cougar and Pooch nearly don't react in time. As it is, they barely manage to hold Roque back between the two of them.

“What do you _mean_ , Max – like he’s not dead?!”

“He’s not,” is Clay’s input, helpful as always.

“ _Mierda_ ,” Roque spits, yanking his arms out of Pooch’s grip, looking the angriest he ever has at Clay, “Are you fucking serious? Can you not even do _that_ right, you _**fucking**_ -”

“Roque,” Cougar says sharply, lowly.

“ _No_ ,” Roque growls, “After all that-"

 _After everything I had to give, after everything I lost_ , Cougar hears.

"-you couldn’t even kill the bastard? ¡No mames!”

“ _Roque_ ,” Cougar snaps, before Clay - red in the face, ruddy with anger - or Jensen or Pooch can butt in. And he does _snap_ , rolling the r with force, his teeth clicking together sharply, the _bite_ of it startling all of them into silence.

“Sea como sea,” Cougar soothes, his voice low and even, “This is what we now have to work with.”

Which results in a lot more yelling: Clay, who growls, “Who the fuck is _we_?” and Pooch, who tries to explain everything that had happened, Jensen still cursing Cougar and Roque to hell and back, but not nearly with the same vitriol and Roque’s acidic “Fuck you, Clay,” that finishes it, with Roque storming off and leaving the rest of them in tense, awkward silence.

*

It gets worse after that, and the reason is – as always, when it comes to Roque – Clay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's finally here! (i'd always intended to do a sequel to the tide drags, but my brain had hold of it too long and it's undergone a ton of revisions and at this point might end up being chaptered but it's HERE so)
> 
> i don't plan on slashing cougar and roque so much as establishing that their relationship is built on trust and nonsexual platonic intimacy, but even if i did pair them up not much of the narrative would have to change to reflect that
> 
> a lot of my inspiration for Roque's backstory comes from my love of magical realism, my adoration of romance languages and (largely) by the thought of Idris Elba speaking spanish and portuguese. you're welcome.
> 
> hover over for translations.


	2. ya no puedo más

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can’t fault Cougar for the turnabout that is their lives, and he can’t blame Pooch and Jensen for feeling betrayed, but he’ll damn well blame Clay’s stupid ass for as long as he draws breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is not dead! it will be finished! soon.

It’s been six days since Cougar brought Roque back, four days since everyone’s known, two days since Roque walked away from Clay. Four days since Jensen’s looked him in the eye.

Four days, Roque decides, is four too many.

“Go ahead, let me have it.”

The low whir of the laptop on Jensen’s lap is the only noise in this part of the house. The luminosity of the screen reflects off Jensen’s stupid ass glasses, plays with the shadows of his face.

“Have what?” Jensen’s voice is flat, trying too hard to be neutral.

“Let’s not fuck around here,” Roque crosses his arms, leans against the door jamb, “You got somethin’ to say to me.”

“Was that a question?”

“ _Jensen_ -”

“Did you really think I would’ve said no?”

The question hangs in the air and Jensen finally lifts his eyes to Roque’s.

“Do you two really think that little of me and Pooch?”

Roque frowns, mouth twisting to side, brows drawing low.

“That’s a fucking stupid conclusion to jump to.”

“Well fuckin’ _sorry_ , it’s all I got to go on, with you faking your own death and Cougar dropping off the map and-”

“I didn’t.”

“What?”

“Didn’t fake my own death. Went into it fully plannin’ to do whatever needed to be done to take care of Max and Wade,” Roque pushes off the door frame, because he doesn’t know how to say _I **did** die and I did it for you_ , makes the two strides to stand before Jensen, “And usually, when someone’s willing to do whatever needs to be done to make sure you can get back to your family in one, mostly functional piece, you say ‘thank you’.”

This time, Roque blocks the punch Jensen sends his way.

“Fuck you, Roque,” Jensen hisses, “You ever think maybe ‘family’ is a little broader than blood?”

He shoves past and out the room before Roque can think of a good answer to that.

* 

“He’s not even mad about the playing turncoat thing,” Pooch shrugs, gesturing absently with his tumbler.

“Figures. He didn’t mention it.”

“If The Pooch had to guess, he’s caught up somewhere between ‘you didn’t tell me about this plan’ and ‘you’re more than cannon fodder to us, you martyring asshole’.”

Roque looks up from his glass and gives Pooch a look, “You sure that second one’s him and not you?”

Pooch tosses him a grin – it looks more like one of Roque’s than his own, something sharp and challenging – and takes another sip of bourbon.

“What can I say? The Pooch and Jensen can be pretty like-minded.”

*

Cougar is only marginally surprised when Roque accosts him, mumbling something about Pooch and Jensen making things _difficult_ , and takes one of Pooch’s trucks.

Three hours later, on some long stretch of unfamiliar highway, Cougar breaks the amiable silence.

“¿Adónde vamos?”

Roque doesn’t answer at first, and the silence creeps back upon them.

“La mierda de casa,” He says eventually, “Unless Jensen’s moved ‘em somewhere else.”

The dogs, Cougar realizes.

“La próxima salida,” Cougar directs, letting the brim of his hat rest against the window, “Right lane.”

Between Roque’s hair-raising driving skills – that, at least, hasn’t changed – and the slowing flow of traffic, Cougar only interrupts the comfortable lull to give directions (“A la izquierda,” “Tres cuadras más,” and once, “ _Puta madre_! It’s called a **stop** sign for a reason, Roque,  la madre que te parió!”).

The farm is an old safe house, appearing abandoned for the most part, suspicious only in its well maintained fences, with not a post out of order. The house set off the main barn is small and mostly empty, but has doggie doors installed so the dogs don’t freeze in the winter. It means the dogs can have the run of the place and give the appearance that someone’s around; so far, no nosy neighbors have tried to report anything (and any reports that might be called in would surely mysteriously disappear).

When Roque pulls the truck up the gravel driveway, Cougar can hear the sound of paws on dirt and clanging tags. The dogs – Cougar doesn’t know their names, if they ever had any – greet them at the front gate, vibrating in kinetic excitement, large furred bodies wriggling over each other in an attempt to get to Roque first.

Roque hasn’t said a word since the stop sign (“Mierda! I stopped, didn’t I?” and he had, if only to avoid t-boning a lone sedan heading west), but he begins to whisper soft words to the dogs, accepting their slobbering affections and excited whines with the genial attention he usually reserves for children.

“They missed you,” As though it has to be said, with how the dogs have knocked Roque onto his ass, squirming into his lap like they’re seven pound Scotties and not fourty plus pounds of Rottweiler, Pit bull, German Shepherd and Dios knows what else.

Roque laughs.

He laughs, the bright kind of laughter he had before Bolivia, running reverent hands along furry flanks and hugging those dogs to him as though they are the key to his salvation. As though he _needs_ – wants – to be saved, taken away from where Cougar’s brought him.

 _Te añoré horrores_ , Cougar doesn’t say. Can’t.

*

A week and a half after Roque walks away from Clay, Pooch and Jensen show up at the farm.

( _You don’t have to stay here, ¿ya sabes?_ Cougar had told him, voice low and something like anhelo.

Something in Roque had rebelled in that, snarling, spitting, _chingado francotirador, **how dare you?**_ )

Being back is… more difficult than Roque had imagined; he was under no illusions of a picturesque happily-ever-after – he’s too aged to believe in such a thing – but this estrangement, this alejamiento… it isn’t what he wanted.

He thinks absently of his bar, of Michel, of nearly a year of the closest thing he’ll ever get to peace.

Cougar’s arrival had been unforeseen, but not unwanted; Roque will admit that, if only to himself. He’d wanted to be forgotten – whispered it into the stagnant night, hardened his heart and marched off to die like a good soldier. But being remembered, being deseado, was like his soul rising right up out of his skin, mixing with the stars, filling him up with such _light_.

He hates it and revels in it in equal measure.

*

“We need to talk,” Pooch begins, playing peacekeeper. Roque thinks back to late nights in Bolivia, drinking solemnly as Clay continued with his delusions of triumphing over Max like some B-movie action hero, the dumb motherfucker that he is.

Roque waves them into the farm house without a word, dogged at the heels by at least three dogs. They hardly let him go anywhere alone, as though afraid that he'll disappear if he's out of sight.

Jensen’s got a stubborn set to his mouth that tells Roque this whole thing is Pooch’s idea. Which, more or less, means it’s all probably going straight to hell.

“Alright,” Roque says when they make it to the sparsely furnished living room, turning to face the two of them, “Let’s talk.”

“Why’d you leave?” Jensen is very pointedly not meeting anyone’s eyes; instead looking the cracks in the barren walls, the dark wood flooring, the streaked bay windows.

“Why do I ever?,” Roque waves a flippant, dismissive hand, “Don’t have the stomach for Clay's bullshit these days. San Juan made me soft.”

Pooch makes a low sound in his throat, “That’s the first time you mentioned where you went.”

Roque grunts, throws himself into an open space on the couch and finds himself pinned stationary underneath a Rottweiler playing at being a lapdog.

“What, you wanna know?”

Pooch shrugs. Jensen frowns, still keeps looking at the damn wall.

“Made my way to San Juan, opened a shitty bar. It was nice… not having to worry about anything.”

“Did you even _think_ about coming back?”

Jensen’s voice is flat, trying too hard to be neutral. Instead of the distant curiosity he's probably aiming for, it comes out a challenge. 

He wants to bare his teeth, wants to snarl and snap until Jensen stops trying to _push_ him. He isn't strong enough to say, _of fucking **course** I thought about coming back, I wanted to come back, every fucking day_ , doesn't know how to say _I told you to forget me but I never wanted to be forgotten and alone, I just wanted us **home**_. Without Cougar here, to take the words from Jensen's mouth and lay them on Roque's tongue, Roque can't help but feel as though they're just talking themselves in circles.

Roque lets his mouth twist to the side again, feeling the stretch in his burn scars, the way the skin tightens to the point of almost-pain. It reminds him where he is, what he's done. Keeps him grounded, lets him think. He takes a breath.

It doesn't help.

“Why the fuck would I? I told you to forget me. You shoulda fuckin’ listened.”

“You are so fucking unbearable-!”

“Jensen,” Pooch cuts in smoothly, “We came here to talk. I think we can do that like grown ass men, don’t you?”

“Look,” he says to Roque next, “You and Cougar might’ve had your whole little plan, but we had no idea what the fuck was going on. We thought you left us to work for the megalomaniac who ruined our lives. We need to know what happened, man.”

Cougar's not here - and Roque's a little glad for it because he can only handle so much and the way Cougar's silences _scream_ can wear him down to his bones, but he's also treading water and flying blind and the stiff English falls flat from his mouth without saying any of what he _means_ and -

Cougar's not here, but Pooch isn't a bad second choice. Roque sighs, throwing an arm up over his eyes.

“Wade found me, a few days after that thing with the hard drive. Caught me at a bar, said he had a proposition for me; come work for Max, make an easy billion and get back stateside. I told him to go fuck himself. I told Cougar, mentioned offhand how I’d woulda played turncoat just to stab that smug jackass in the back…”

Pooch is frowning, the pensive little frown he gets when he’s working something out in his head. Jensen is still scowling.

“… Cougs said he’d bring me back.”

“How did Wade find you?”

Roque shrugs half-heartedly, “He said that Max had been keeping tabs on Aisha and when she came to us, so did he.”

“Why did Wade only approach you though?”

Somehow, Jensen manages to make it sound accusatory. By the grace of some god, Roque manages to keep the sneer off his face.

“Shit, I figure if Max was monitoring our every move, he woulda known things weren’t all sunshine and fucking daisies in Loserland.”

Pooch is still frowning, though, staring past Roque, “That could make sense, except it wasn’t like we were _fighting_ or anything. At most, Roque was kinda... snippy."

'Snippy' is more tactful than 'homicidal' or 'brooding', so Roque let's it go.

"Unless he had us bugged…”

Jensen’s anger collapses into something far more frightening; the face he makes when he’s trying connect the dots (which, usually ended with something exploding and lots of cursing), “… or Max had a plant.”

Roque can guess where this is going – he’s not some fucking tech genius, but he’s never been a fool – and por dios, he just doesn’t care anymore. He can’t.

“Leave it.”

“Roque, you were _right_ -,”Any other time, the incredulity in Jensen’s voice would rankle something awful, but right now, Roque can _not_ fucking care. It **can’t** matter.

“ _Leave_ it, Jensen.”

“Roque, I-”

“Jensen, I swear on my mama’s grave, if you don’t fucking _**drop**_ it-”

“I just-”

Pooch finally speaks up again, “Jensen, he’s right. Just let it go, man.”

Jensen whirls to face Pooch like a man betrayed, “But Pooch-”

“Yeah, I know,” Pooch says over him, voice pointed, “But what fucking good would it do now, huh? If- If Aisha is a fucking-- _sleeper agent_ or some shit, there isn’t shit we can do. She’s already been here since Bolivia, the hell if we can drop off the map now.”

Jensen’s mouth snaps shut, but he keeps frowning mulishly. Pooch runs a hand over his scalp, eyes quick and worried, “Fuck, man, she’s been in my _house_ , she’s _held my kid_. Fuck, Jolene is gonna _**kill**_ me.”

“No,” Roque says, “Because neither of you are going to say a goddamn word.”

He cuts his hand through the air sharply, cuts Pooch off before he can get a word in edge-wise, “ _No_ , okay? So what if she’s a plant? We haven't done anything that would catch Max’s attention, and we’re not gonna start now.”

And then, because he can hardly help himself, because he was never good at not making himself miserable, “The hell if Clay would listen, anyhow.”

*


	3. si te aprovechas tú de mi, me aprovecharé de ti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ( _We are this world_ , his mamãe whispers to him in lilting lusophonic syllables, holding his small child body close to her own. Outside, the sound of musket fire is overwhelming. Somewhere, a dog is barking. There are small screams that taper off into cold silence.
> 
>  _We are everything that makes this world up_ , she whispers conspiratorially, _and nothing in this world can unmake us_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter! this has been a long time coming.
> 
> the fic kinda got away with me as i tried to incorporate more and more of my own headcanons in regards to back stories, and there's a lot that was added then removed then re-added. this is the end of the series, but i might throw up some drabbles and shorts of all the things that didn't make it into this part.

***

Roque sees Clay again eight days later, at an ungodly hour of the morning.

More accurately, Roque walks in on Cougar threatening Clay in the shitty kitchen of the farmhouse at four o’ fucking clock on a Thursday.

“This, it is not our problem to fix. This madman, he is gunning for _you_ ,” Cougar is hissing, crowded up right in Clay’s face, “So you will find the way to end this, since ours were so _**objectionable**_.”

It’s the most that Cougar’s said at once for a long while – since Afghanistan – and the stumped look on Clay’s face has Roque savoring the moment before Cougar notices him.

“Me voy,” Cougar tells him, with an exasperated expression and a dismissive gesture in Clay’s general direction, “No puedo aguantar este chingado comemierdas.”

“Ya sé. No ‘speres despierto.”

Next moment, he’s gone and Clay is staring hard just to Roque’s left. Roque waits.

“Did he just call me a jackass?”

“Nah,” Roque says truthfully; it had been a good deal more offensive than that, “He didn’t.”

“I’m pretty sure he said something-”

“Clay,” Roque snaps, because he’s not down here trying to make buddy-buddy with his asshole ex-CO, and especially not at four in the fucking morning, “How would you know? Your Spanish is as shitty as and ineffective as your leadership. What do you want.”

He doesn’t make it a question, and the muscles in Clay’s jaw jump. Roque wants him to take the bait; the ensuing fight might do him some good. Of course, Clay doesn’t. Bastard.

“I didn’t know you spoke Spanish.”

My dad's from Southern Mexico. I was born in Brazil.”

Clay scowls, confusion readily apparent on his face, “You told me you were from Chicago.”

“Yeah, and you told us we were goin’ home. Guess we’re both liars.”

Silence, again, as Clay glares and clenches his teeth and Roque just thinks _do it, fuckin’ do it, give me a reason to **end** you_.

Clay doesn’t.

He takes a deep breath, then looks Roque dead in the eye and asks, “If I go after Max again, will you help?”

Roque wants to shoot him. Twice, in each eye. Instead, he flexes his fingers and breathes very carefully.

“When are you gonna fuckin’ let it _die_ , Clay?”

“It can’t die until he’s dead, and you know that.”

“Yeah, well I doubt he's gonna go without you, so where's that leave you?”

“I got us home,” Clay insists, jaw jutting out mulishly. Roque allows the change of topic.

“By the skin of your fucking teeth. Barely.”

Clay makes a noise of exasperation, throws his hands up in the air as though beseeching some higher power to look at what he has to deal with, “What is your _problem_ , Roque?”

Roque laughs.

He doesn’t mean to, but it comes nonetheless, sharp and bitter barks of laughter that make Clay tense in wary anticipation.

“My _problem_? My fucking _problem_ is that my CO started thinking with his dick and trusted the survival of his men to some harebrained scheme concocted by the sleeper agent of the megalomaniac trying to kill him!”

Clay’s mouth drops open and Roque can see the rebuttal and denial on his tongue, so he presses on, louder, “My _problem_ is that my CO never led when we needed him to, he only kept promising revenge and payback instead of focusing on getting his men home, to their families. We were fucking _stranded_ , burned by our own Command, and you kept running off half-cocked like we still had military backing!”

Roque crowds into Clay’s space, and he can see why Cougar would make threats from this distance; it’s very effective, “My goddamn _**problem**_ , Clay, is that you would’ve led us like lambs to slaughter right into Max’s arms, firmly believing the entire time that you were in control. And I _refuse_ to be led by so weak a man as that.”

He doesn’t slam the farmhouse door behind him, but it’s a near thing.

*

Apparently, Clay is as persistent as ever. Roque doesn’t even know why he’s surprised.

Clay is out the door seconds after Roque closes it. Clay dogs Roque’s steps, catches him by the arm before he can reach the gate. Roque yanks him arm back, but doesn’t walk away. Always so damn persistent.

“The plane,” Clay says abruptly, eyes focused unerringly on Roque. Looking for tells. “You were on that plane.”

“I was,” Roque agrees.

“I had Cougar blow that plane to hell,” Clay continues, looking less and less angry and more and more… unsettled, “Why didn’t you die?”

Roque steps forward and tilts his head down until he and Clay are breathing the same inhale. He looks Clay dead in the eyes, doesn’t blink.

He says, calm as anything, “I did die, Clay. That's the point.”

Clay’s arm spasms and Roque watches his muscles jump and tense, fingers curling into a reflexive fist. So he says again, only this time sharper, “I _did_ die, Clay. I just didn’t let it _stop_ me.”

*

Cougar never asks him how he survived, never asked him what it felt like. On the way back from San Juan, Roque would stand in front of the streaky hotel mirror and stare at himself, skin bared. The burns are extensive on his left side, exploding from his hips and crawling all the way up to his face. The burned skin is a little darker than the rest of him, and hard to the touch. They crest and fall, changing his body into plains and hills, mountains and oceans of smooth and warped skin.

Cougar never asks, never even seems to have doubted that Roque was alive.

He did die, on that plane. There's no way he could've avoided it.

But...

( _We are this world_ , his mamãe whispers to him in lilting lusophonic syllabes, holding his small child body close to her own. Outside, the sound of musket fire is overwhelming. Somewhere, a dog is barking. There are small screams that taper into cold silence. Someone starts yelling.

His mamãe has deep, raised wounds on her back and a crooked "F" half-carved into her left shoulder. Her skin is dark and rough, and her hair is finally growing back from being shorn away, and she can lift as much as his papai can. She is the most beautiful woman that Roque knows, scars and all. His papai had brought them to the palenque in San Lorenzo, because odds against all odds, Yanga is holding the Spaniards off and Yanga has promised freedom to all who sought it. Roque knows that his parents met when his mamãe had run from Palmares, and they fell in love as they snuck through forests and pueblos and campos until he was born. And now, old enough to walk and run on his own, they have finally made it to Yanga's palenque.

 _We are everything that makes this world up_ , she whispers to him conspiratorially, _and **nothing** in this world can unmake us_.)

Roque has died before. He got used to it, eventually. Not dying, but being _made_. He got used to pulling himself back together, giving it another go.

His parents died, old and content, only a few short years before he met Clay. He had gone to visit them, still in Yanga, and there had been a wild party put on by the whole pueblo to see them off. They had been old - his papai nearly five hundred and his mamãe closer to six - but still, his mamãe kept a garden and shared her vegetables with all the neighbors, and his papai fixed their roofs and porches. The whole pueblo screams and shouts as they dance that night, and in the morning his parents are buried, graves wreathed in the brightest flowers. Roque didn't die then, but it was still hard to pull himself together after, knowing that his mamãe and papai were gone. Eventually, he managed.

And then he met Clay.

After Bolivia - after Max, after Wade, after Clay and Aisha and the plane, Wade choking on blood and smoke as everything _explodes_ into fire and pain - Roque let himself go. He was still made, just formless. He _hurt_. He ached for rest. There had been nothing to anchor him but the soft whispers of _lo prometo_.

After Bolivia... it takes a while, but Roque remakes himself. Out of anger and bittersweet sorrow and the knowledge that his team was safe, even if they probably cursed his name. But then, Cougar showed up and wanted Roque to really _live_ again, instead of just being alive. Wanted Roque there, with him and everyone else.

So Roque comes Home.

*

Even though Clay has fucked off, Roque winds up driving back to Pooch’s house anyway, Cougar riding shotgun and his duffel bag of knives in the truck bed.

“You don’t have to help,” Cougar had told him before sliding into the truck, brim of his hat low over his face, “You’ve done your part, más que suficinte.”

Roque hadn’t said anything then, or for the drive back to Pooch’s, but before they pull onto the street, he says, “I tried to end it, but it’s still not over.... I'm _tired_. I need to end this.”

Cougar nods, before tentatively adding, “Y después, recomenzaremos, ¿no?”

Roque’s mouth twists to the side until the burn scars ache – a new tell of uncertainty, as much as an affirmation of life – and he eventually says, “Volveremos juntos... Lo prometo.”

It's not what Cougar asked, but it's answer enough.

*

Aisha isn’t at Pooch’s, to which Roque is both relieved and suspicious. When they walk in, Pooch catches his eye and grimaces. Jolene is with Linneus at her mother’s and Jennifer and Beth are back in Maryland. It’s a small mercy, judging by Clay’s clenched jaw and reddening face when he does finally show up.

“What did you mean,” is the first thing Clay growls, barely closing the front door in his haste to jab a finger at Roque, “That Aisha is Max’s agent?”

Pooch groans and Jensen hisses, “What was that about not telling?” and Clay rumbles, “What, you all **_knew_**?”

“Some of us think about things with our upstairs brains, Clay,” Jensen drawls, still making stink-eyes at Roque. Roque snorts.

“What is that supposed to-”

“Clay, please,” Pooch cuts in, one hand up in obvious annoyance, “It wasn’t exactly subtle. I mean, she shows up, fucks you and suddenly she’s in the fold? She somehow manages to catch us at the exact moments that there’s dissent in the ranks? We’d been in Bolivia for months, but she only appears at that very moment? And all of Max’s plans involving us suddenly start focusing on sowing discontent despite the fact that no one would know we were fighting unless they were in our safe house?”

Clay gestures emphatically at Roque.

“Okay,” Pooch says, the derision in his tone nearly tangible, “Allow me to impart some wisdom upon you. Wade didn’t go to Roque until after that whole SNAFU with the armored truck. After Aisha essentially took command of our unit.”

Clay is still making emphatic gestures in Roque’s general direction, but Roque is staring at Pooch, somewhere between impressed and bitter. Hurt. _Why can you only see it **now**?_ , he almost asks. Almost.

Pooch meets Roque’s eyes with a sardonic twist to his mouth and says, “Hindsight is a bitch.”

“Clay,” Jensen adds, “Man, you were wrong, just accept it!”

Clay – Clay, who looks cornered, trapped, desperate – snaps back, “Like you weren’t falling for the same thing?”

Jensen sighs explosively, hands up, “Okay so, yes Aisha is both scarily attractive and scarily competent with a number of weapons,” Pooch makes a noise of commiseration, “but I – unlike you – am not a) the commanding officer of a spec-ops team and therefore holding other people's lives in my hand, nor do I make the habit of b) sleeping with people who try to _kill_ me.”

Clay is only getting angrier, more defensive, and Jensen seems almost vindictive in his pointed remarks. Roque wants to take joy in Clay's frustration, but really all he can feel is disquiet. Before they can have another go at it, Cougar growls, "That is _not the point_. Clay, you brought us here because you say you want to end it. So tell us how it ends."

Clays jaw works. They wait. Clay finally says, "I know where he is."

Pooch says, flat, "Aisha told you."

Clay swallows, nods. Sighs. "If she is a plant, then he's expecting us. Four of us, at least."

"Or she could be waiting with an army to kill us herself," Roque drawls, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I _know_ ," Clay bites off. Sighs. Says, softer, "I know. But... If Max wants us dead, he'd want to do it himself."

"So what?" Jensen asks, throwing his hands up, "We go in, guns blazing, like that won't end terribly?"

Clay and Jensen start to yell at each other again, with Pooch and Cougar throwing in a sly comment here or there, but not intervening. The thing is, Jensen's not wrong. None of them trust Clay to lead, Clay can't trust Roque to kill or Cougar to shoot, Pooch and Jensen can't trust Roque and Cougar not to slip away again. And even if Aisha is a plant, Jensen would probably still shoot Roque himself. Pooch and Jensen, they have the most to lose. Familes - blood - to lose.

_You ever think 'family' is a little broader than blood?_

Maybe... Maybe they all have something to lose.

Maybe they're all taking equal risks, putting broken faith in each other, leaving wounds open and trusting each other not to poke and prod.

"Let's do it," Roque says, loud and sudden, quieting them all, "Let's finish this damn thing."

He's not doing it for Clay, or Jensen or Pooch, or even Cougar. They're all gambling on this, all risking everything. Roque's doing it... doing _something_ , for the first time in a long time, for his own fucking self.

*

They argue some more - how did they _ever_ function before, honestly? - and then gear up. Their last caches of assault rifles, sniper rifles, knives, comms, kevlar vests, and a Hummer. Roque still thinks it's a shit ugly car, but it's big and armored and they're basically going to war. He rolls his eyes, but doesn't say anything when Pooch lovingly moves Mojito to the dashboard. Clay is holding an assault rifle, kevlar half-zipped. He looks dazed, lost.

They circle up the way they used to, before missions. Roque meets Cougar's eyes.

"Te prometo la luna y las estrellas," the sniper says, solemn and weighty. Roque believes him.

Roque's lips curl into a secretive little smile, that grows until the burns pull taut.

"Losers," he says, turning towards the car, "Let's roll."

***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thus it ends!
> 
> we felt like an ambiguous ending better suited the fic, since it's not so much about actually killing max or being killed, so much as it is about learning how to actually be a team, whatever the hell that may imply. as previously stated, if anything else were to be added to this verse, it would short non-linear scenes.
> 
> a huge thank you to each and every one of you who have read or left kudos on this series!!! it's the first thing we ever posted on AO3 and we are proud to have finally finished it.
> 
>  **edit 17/1/15:** added a bunch of stuff from the drafts that is probably only interesting to us but is the reason why the fic is tagged magical realism so


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